Imagine for a moment that one of your loved ones is the victim of a terrorist attack. Beyond the pain of the moment, also imagine the frustration you must feel if the person responsible is known to the authorities and has been found guilty but is still at large because the country where he is refuses to extradite him.
The story I am telling you about is very real and unfortunately the country that does not extradite a criminal convicted of a terrorist attack is Canada.
44 years ago, on October 3, 1980, a bomb exploded targeting the synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris and killed 4 people and injured 46 others in what was the first anti-Semitic attack in France since the end of the Second World War. .
Following the research work, two conclusions stood out to the investigators: the attribution of this deadly attack to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations (PFLP-OS) and the discovery after almost 30 years of investigation that the culprit moved to Canada since the attack and is named Hassan Diab.
At this time, the Harper Government agreed to extradite him so that he could stand trial in France, but he managed to return to Canada when his first trial was canceled on technicalities. He was then able to leave free in 2018 in Canada.
This annulment was overturned three years later, sending the former sociology professor back to the Paris court. Since then, a second trial has taken place and Hassan Diab has chosen not to attend. His lawyers did everything to try to discredit the evidence against him, but it was too strong: He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in April 2023.
A betrayal against our French ally
Since then, the Trudeau government has not responded to France’s extradition request. Mixing insult with injury, the Prime Minister of Canada’s reaction was nothing more than a vulgar insinuation that Diab’s rights had been violated.
“We will look closely at the decision, we will look at what the next steps will be for the French government,” said the head of the Canadian government during a press briefing. “We take very seriously the importance of protecting Canadian citizens and respecting their rights,” he added.
Let us understand each other clearly. France is not a banana republic. It is an ally of Canada, a member of the G7, a country with a respected justice system. We are not talking here about an extradition request that would come from a dictatorship that held a sham trial.
If Canada wants to be a country taken seriously, it is time for reason to prevail.
That is to say, it is time for the convicted person to be extradited and serve his prison sentence, and it is time for justice to be done for Aliza Shagrir, Jean-Michel Barbé, Hilario Lopes-Fernandez and Philippe Bouissou .
As a Jew born in France and now living in Quebec, I think that after 44 years of waiting, the wait has lasted too long.
Yannis Harrouche, Director of Government Relations, CIJA (Quebec)
